BISHOP MORAN AND THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN RECORD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 304, 14 February 1879, Page 9

BISHOP MORAN AND THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN RECORD.

The Catholic and Protestant laity both ought to thank the minister of the " First Church." He has been the means of causing Bishop Moran • write a very interesting letter in the Tablet containing some things which I believe are " not generally known" either to Catholics or Protestants. By the way, what is the meaning of the name " First Church ?" It seems an odd and, not to speak irreverently, a queer name for a church. We have all heard of the Catholic Church, the English Church, the Presbyterian Church, and we know what these words mean. But a " First Church"' — No I never ! Why " First ? " Is it the biggest, the finest church in Dunedin, or the worshippers in it, are they piominent in Christian piety and alms deeds, in liberality and refinement and high principles of justice and honour above all other Dunedinites ? The title seems to savour somewhat of vanity, and ostentation. Perhaps the llev. Lindsay Mackie may tell us at a distance, the reason why it is so called. Bishop Moran has hammered the minister of the First Church, and I presume we must call him the first minister of Dunedin, terribly ; and

cut him to the bone. _ But the concluding part of the Bishop's letter wa* the unkindest cut of all, in my opinion. It looked like an attempt to make the "First" minister practice justice, gentlemanly manners, and Christian charity "on compulsion ; " we shall see if he succeed. I shall be agreeably disappointed if he do. I would have liked if Bishop Moran had left the " First" minister to make a voluntary and graceful apology after he found how cruelly he had been deceived and his. credulity practised upon by the Melbourne Cross. What a profanation in such a paper assuming such a name ! But the Melbourne Cross and Dunedin Christian Record have in this instance only acted as the Protestant pulpit -and Press generally have acted ever since the birth of Protestantism. They volularily or involuntarily have practised a system of gross and shameful . deception on the. people in regard to Catholic matters. To ask such deceivers to make reparation or apologies to those whom they have wronged,- or tried to wrong, has usually proved idle and vain. The only result has been to make them repeat their calumnies and try to justify them. Let us hope the "First" minister will be an exception. He owes Catholics not only an apology, but the fullest and most ample apology which the English language can possibly express for the atrocious, and we may well call them devilish, calumnies he has been the means of circulating against them so recklessly. He owes such an apology, not only to Dr. Moran and the Catholic clergy generally, who are our spiritual guides and teachers, but to every member of the Catholic laity. As the Catholic Church believes so the Catholic laity believes. A wrong done, or attempted to be done, to the character of the "Catholic clergy is done to every even the humblest, member of the Catholic laity. The " First" minister may rely" upon it we feel it as such. As well may he expect that a grateful and affectionate child would read without indignation some foul caluihuy published against his parents, as that the Caiholic laity would read unmoved <«uch slanders against the Catholic Church as he has just published in his Record. He expects possibly by such unworthy means to damage the good name of the Catholic schools for higher education in this colony, and set the people against them. But just and sensible Protestants will not so easily be imposed on now. The Protestant world is too well informed for that in these days of cheap books and Catholic newspapers and other Catholic literature. The reign of Protestant prejudice and ignorance is fast drawing to a close. Perhaps even in this colony it is declining. If the " First " minister wishes to avert this, and keep Protestantism up, he will publish no more such articles as that which Dr. Moran has replied to. IE he do persist, he will thereby set educated Protestants of good will to enquire into the real tenets of the Catholic Church; When any sincere Protestant does this in a spirit of humility, and relying on the Divine guidance, he is half a Catholic already, and will very soon become a full-blown " Roman Recruit," if he only honestly persevere in his researches. The credulity of illiterate or half-educated Protestants in regard to Catholic matters as misrepresented by the Protestant pulpit and press, is even now amazing. But it is nothing now compared to what it was some forty or fifty years back. If the Protestant public were weak enoueh to believe such men as the editors of the Melbourne Southern Cross and Dunedin Christian Record they would believe that the Jesuits, or in other words the Roman Catholic Church, have had the daring impiety to promulgate a new Decalogue diametrically opposed to that given to Moses on the Mount. The new Catholic, or Jesuit, Decalogue, if we believe the Record and others of his cloth, teaches the duty of worshipping idols or false gods. It tcachc-h tbeft, lying, murder, and impurity. No wonder they say that there should be so many bad Catholic people everywhere. Unfortunately Catholics, no less than Protestants, often violate the moral law as contained in the Decalogue without scruple. The " First" minister, for example does not seem to pay much respect to that part of the Mosaic Decalogue, which says : " Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbour." He violates it without hesitation, and in a way the most shameless and shocking. Would an action for defamation of chaiocter not lie against the Record for the insult, A public body, no less than an individual, may be defamed, and entitled to legal redress, I believe. The Record" x article bears malice on its face, or inexcusable, and criminal ignorance. Johx Wood. Auckland, January, 1879.